Sedan Advice

Replacing a legend of any sort is a tall order. But when the legend in question is Chevrolet’s celebrated small block V8 engine (which ran from 1954 to 2003 in Gen 1 and Gen 2 forms, powering everything from Corvettes to pick-ups) then any engine family attempting to replace it has enormous boots to fill.

Many engines have become legendary among enthusiast motorists, sometimes for their longevity, sometimes for their performance and sometimes even their character. In the case of Toyota’s 1JZ and 2JZ, all three of those boxes are unequivocally ticked.

There’s a famous advertising catch-cry in North America: `Yeah, it’s got a Hemi’. And that five-word phrase was enough to gain the attention of performance-car lovers in no uncertain terms.

Car companies talk a lot about creating an emotional connection with customers these days. While it’s easy to think that’s just a marketing gimmick, Hyundai demonstrates what it really means with the 2021 N Festival. 

Defining what constitutes a ‘sports car’ is a reliably easy way of starting an argument. Some, slightly simplistic folk will insist that it means anything with wheels that’s painted red. Others that having a roof that’s convertible makes the grade. But the simplest definition is that it’s any car that values performance and the thrill of driving over whether or not you have ample space to fit your

Peter Brock was the first superstar of Australian motor racing.

Study shows top sellers are not always the most affordable cars to own. One of Australia's cheapest cars is also the most affordable to own and operate -- even though it must use premium unleaded petrol which can cost up to 20 cents a litre more than regular fuel.   The Suzuki Alto hatchback, which starts from just

Think “first car”, think “budget car”. Price is the key to unlock the best choices in vehicles for first-car buyers, but if you’re in this bracket, your second criterium should be safety.

If Santa isn't going to be parking a new set of wheels in your Christmas stocking, then it's time to take matters into your own hands.

The cars many V8 enthusiasts hold up being responsible for kicking the recent muscle car war into high gear is Dodge’s SRT Hellcat range. First shown in August 2014, the Hellcat badge represented a high-performance variant of the SRT Challenger and Charger muscle cars, along with the Jeep Cherokee Trackhawk, which joined the line-up in 2018.Producing a monstrous 527kW (707hp) from a 6.2-litre Hemi V8 wearing a fat 2.3-litre twin-rotor intercooled supercharger, the Hellcats were the most powerful Chrysler production vehicles ever built and the most powerful muscle cars of all time until Chrysler brought out the race-tuned 626kW (840hp) Demon sibling in 2018.While Chrysler has enjoyed a resurgence in Australia over the last decade, we missed out on the go-fast Challenger and Charger models as these platforms are not built in right-hand-drive format. We did get a limited number of Jeep Trackhawk models, but for some people a 2.4-tonne SUV is the antithesis of a proper muscle car.The supercharged Hemi models started at US$60,990 (nearly $87,000 Aussie pesos) at their launch, but the Dodge Hellcat price was well over $200,000 once they’d been imported to Australia and put through a rigorous compliance programme. The cost of this work ran into the tens of thousands of dollars and, with their rarity and popularity, this drove local prices up.While Chrysler caught Ford and General Motors napping off the line, both manufacturers have hit back with their own bombastic muscle cars packing over 485kW (650hp) and plenty of flat-out racing smarts like variable-ratio oil pumps, intercooled superchargers, and magnetic ride control dampers. The Shelby GT500 Mustang and Camaro ZL1-1LE both showed Hellcats a clean set of heels around race tracks as the Hellcats cannot get away from their heavy, ponderous underpinnings that date back to 2005!Although many tag 2020 as the era of Tesla and electric vehicles, the positive reviews from media and owners pushed Dodge to keep developing the big supercharged V8 Hellcats to include the monstrous limited-edition 626kW (840hp) Demon model (which can run the quarter-mile in single-digit times!), the Jeep Trackhawk SUV, and the new “Redeye” Hellcat models which use some of the parts from the Demon to produce a staggering 594kW (797hp).Dodge saw fit to equip the Redeye with wider guards and bigger wheels and tyres for more grip, upgraded differential and axles, as well as the Demon’s huge 2.7-litre supercharger that pushes more boosted air into the 6.2-litre V8. All that work means the SRT Hellcat Redeye edition is the fastest production muscle car ever produced, and this makes it incredibly sought-after.All Demons have been sold, though there are already a handful in Australia for sale for anywhere between $300,000 and $400,000 as they’re considered to be modern classics. Hellcat Redeye models have started coming into Aussie shores, though these should price between a normal Challenger and a Demon as they start at almost US$71,000 in their homeland (before any expensive compliance work has to take place).Thanks to Australia’s import laws, the best chance to own a Hellcat model is to buy one second-hand which has been imported into Australia and properly converted to right-hand drive by an authorised workshop. Any import car should have paperwork showing the import procedure was properly done, and the car had a legitimate title in the USA.The Hellcats seem to be fairly reliable, though there are plenty which have been crashed as drivers can struggle to control over 700hp so it might pay to check the VIN (the car’s unique identity number) on the American CarFAX service to see if there had been any insurance claims or accident history in its past.